Tromso may seem a familiar name but that may be more down to the fact that they are the most northerly based top level football team in the World rather than because of their success on the pitch. Some of us will also remember a snow laden Cup Winners Cup tie with Chelsea in the 1997-98 season – the Norwegians won the home leg 3-2 before capitulating by seven goals to one in the return.
Formed in 1920, Tromso won the old Northern Norwegian Championship on three occasions but have yet to win the Tippeligaen. Last season they finished fourth, thereby gaining entry into the Europa League but as the side lines up at White Hart Lane on Thursday night, they may just have other things on their mind.
With seven games to go in the domestic campaign, Tromso are fourth from bottom and are ahead of Start, who occupy the relegation play off place, by virtue of goal difference alone. So they may have different priorities than European success but who can cause an upset for the visitors on Thursday?
The man leading the line is most likely to be Czech Under 21 International Zdeněk Ondrášek but in a poor season, the leading scorer is midfielder Remi Johansen who has seven goals from 20 games in this campaign.
During some intensive (brief) research the only former Tromso players to have any connection with Spurs are the goalkeeper Lars Hirschfield who was on our books between 2002-04 while defender Roger Nilsen played the same number of league games for the Norwegian club at the start of his career as he did for Spurs in 1999 – three.
So there they are and to be honest, it should be a comfortable evening against a side who have had their issues domestically in 2013.
Blond hair and blue eyes though, makes me shiver HHXX
As a Tottenham fan since the Danny Blanchflower area and grown up in Tromsøs neighbouring city Harstad, I can only tell that Spurs need to be fully focused, also in this game. Tromsø beat ROSENBORG in the last Tippeliga round and without proper focus, Tottenham might face more competition than what they seem to expect. Thomas Bendiksen in their midfield was 4 years with Glasgow Rangers, and the general level is not bad at all. They lost their coach Per Høgmo last season, and I think this is the reason why they are suffering a setback this year. But old coach Steinar Nilsen joined the coaching staff just ahead of the Rosenborg match on sunday, and it seems that this gave them a powerful lift right away. Well, normally a fully focused Tottenham team should win this game, but let us see…..
i wouldnt worry. they can have all the rangers players they like!
Their manager has come out and said he’ll be essentially playing the reserves in this game due to the league situation. High time for someone like Lamela to come in and score some full debut goals!